This Reminds Me

Just a little musical interlude for you today – “I Saw Three Ships,” performed by the Reagan High School choir, including Lois.

I love Christmas music.  In fact – In 1994, Keith convinced me to abandon over-the-air TV for DISH because of its holiday music channel.  Pretty funny, since we both work on U-verse now.

Lois is top row, second from the right.  She was 15th chair region choir alto for Southeast Texas this year, too.

Tomorrow, it’s the children’s and youth choir at church leading worship.  And Monday night – Hannah in the Bush Middle School choir.

Gotta get my clapping hands ready!

Every family has its stories.  It’s one of the attributes that defines a family.

I grew up with stories of my Hoosier mom – Wyoming – and her three sisters – Arizona, Oklahoma and Nevada – plus their four brothers – Hugo Denver, William S. Hart, Texas and Kirby.   My mother’s father – a despicable hillbilly drunk – was enamored with the American West.  My mother’s mother – a long-suffering Quaker – acquiesced to his moniker choices.

(l-r) Oklahoma (Mary), Wyoming (Wy), Nevada (Neva) and Arizona (Zum) in the 70’s.  To tease my mom, I’d say, “Oh, Wyoming, you’re in such a state.”

We lost Mother in 1998.  Mom’s four brothers died long ago.   Her last sister – Mary – died in the wee hours Monday.

Aunt Mary and Me in 2007

Mom and her sisters – including Aunt Mary – did not let their bleak childhood circumstances define them.   They all attended college or completed professional training; all reared/encouraged their children, nieces and nephews; all used their creativity, generosity, wit and intelligence to leave this world a far better place than they found it.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve marveled at what they accomplished.  They truly were “The Greatest Generation.”  I wonder if I could have done the same.   I know I’ve been given more, and accomplished less – that is not false modesty,  it’s simply truth.

I’ve grown weary in recent years of adults whining about their parents – perhaps because I tired of it in myself.   What our parents did.  Or didn’t do.  What slights, hurts and psychic sores we’ve picked at for decades.

When do you just grow up and let it go?  Seriously.  When do you?

Maybe it’s when your parents – and their siblings – are all gone.

Because then there’s no one left to blame.

You’re “it.”

I spoke to Aunt Mary at least once a week, and listening to her was sorta like hearing my mom again.   I loved her chuckling through stories about my family.  Our family.

Those stories have helped define me.  I know now, too, that the threads that weave family ties don’t always have to be knit in the same pattern.   And those threads can span generations, and even worlds.

Mom and her sisters always hated to say “goodbye.”  So I won’t.  I’ll just say, “Your life was a great story, Aunt Mary.  I’ll make sure my girls hear it.”

I miss you already. But you know that.

Just a little number my homies and I choreographed.

Kanye West says it’s way better than that silly thang of  Beyonce’s.

We love sharing a feast with friends – especially those we haven’t met yet.

One of the biggest blessings we’ve had in San Antonio is the opportunity to host airmen trainees from Lackland AFB for Thanksgiving.   We never know their genders, or ages, or hometowns until we’re getting acquainted while driving away from the base.  And we don’t need to.  We know what we need to know.  We’re all Americans.

Until I went digital in 2003 – I was always a “Nikon gal,” going back to my 1979  Nikon EM (”The plastic Nikon,” as my friend and professional photographer Steve sniffed).  My digital cameras have all been Kodak models, largely because -  I confess – I like the software.

But my latest Kodak  – a 2005 5.0 MP 7590 – has been sputtering with its shuttering for several weeks – slow and hard to focus, turning off by itself, etc.   I knew I needed a new camera, but didn’t want to spend the money on a new one, or take the time to learn it.

Keith removed the decision from my shooting finger by surprising me with a new camera for our anniversary.  A Nikon!  An SLR!  With a fabulous 18 – 105 lens (be still my heart!)  But dang – the thing has an instruction book an inch thick (literally).  I can barely squeeze in my 20 minutes of bus reading every day.   When exactly was I going to find the time to ingest the college course necessary to use the sucker?   I confess:  The thought exhausted me.  So the poor thing sat on my dresser – alone, unused, unloved – for more than a week.

Tonight was “Harvest Festival” at church – a pitch-in dinner followed by a fantastic choral program.  I hadn’t planned on taking pictures, but our music minister – whom I adore – seemed disappointed when he asked me if I’d brought my camera.  So Keith bolted his dinner, then raced home to get my camera.  My new camera.  My new Nikon.  Which I literally had not touched, for fear of the massive learning curve required.

It was time for some on-the-job training. Ten minutes’ worth before the program began.  No pressure.

The full choir and orchestra, from the back of the church.  Mono pod on a pew chair using the wide-angle 18 setting.  It felt so, so good to be twisting an SLR lens again.

Buds in the choir.  Mono pod.  Telephoto (105) lens setting.

After the service – Hannah carrying Samaritan’s Purse boxes for crating.  Our church is one of two San Antonio collection centers.  Hand-held; mid-range.

We crated about 1400 boxes Wednesday night.  There were probably 1000 more to crate tonight.  Need a ceiling-bouncing flash to illuminate the distant people.  I’ll have to get that figured out.

I confess:  As busy as the next few weeks will be, my Nikon would probably have sat unused on my dresser until after the holidays.  But as it is – I had to use it tonight, so…..

Thanks, Phil for motivating me.

Lois is getting her wisdom teeth out tomorrow.  I’ll have some reading time as I wait.

I confess – I’m thinking there’s a manual I need to read.

Confession is good for the soul, doncha know?

It was the week after Armistice (according to Keith.)

It was the week before Thanksgiving (according to me.)

But either way – we married November 18, 1989.  So we’ve been married 20 years today.

My brother David walked me down the aisle at Westbury Baptist.  We had practiced in street clothes, but not in my dress – which fed up into his electric wheelchair gears about 3/4 of the way to the alter.  I was gouging his back hissing, “Reverse!  Reverse!” while he countered  “I can’t!  I can’t!”   My brother-in-law Carl and Keith slowly extracted my dress from the mechanism.  When we made it to the platform, my wonderful Uncle Jim – the Methodist minister who married us – produced a gynormous white handkerchief for Keith to wipe his greasy hands upon during a lengthy prayer.   Uncle Jim later told us, “I always carry it.  You wouldn’t believe what it’s wiped up.”

My brilliant niece Sarah and Keith’s best friend Kurt attended us.    I was in Houston this weekend to celebrate the 65th birthday of my sister Judy (Sarah’s mom).  Sarah surprised me with an anniversary gift to share with Keith.  Pay attention to our faces in the picture below…….

Yes, we were younger, thinner , a lot smarter and had disposable income.  Note the antique elephant on top of our cake, a gift from Keith’s mom because we met at the Republican phone bank and spent the following evening together at the George R. Brown Convention Center, waiting for #41 to make his triumphant entrance.   See our faces?

See them again!  “Becky & Keith,” “11/18/89  20 yrs!” and line art of our faces as scanned from the cake-cutting picture.  Sarah and Judy custom-ordered these M&M’s in our wedding colors – shades of pink and wine, heavy on the mauve – which David always described as “a color not occurring in nature.”  We served M&M’s in big bowls at our reception.

We fantasized about all kinds of honeymoons, but ended up in Galveston because I had a Gold C coupon for the Hotel Galvez – most certainly an indicator of behaviors to come.

Keith totally stunned me when he asked me to marry him.  In fact, I responded, “Are you crazy?”   Now he lives with five woman so if he wasn’t crazy then, he’s got to be now.

Lots has changed in 20 years, but not everything.  I still like mauve.  And elephants.   I love Keith more than ever.  And when the evenings get stressful and there’s just too much to try to jam in,  I try to remember those big bowls of M&M’s at our reception and think:  Let those harsh words just melt in my mouth.  Because I’ve got the one I love to hold my hand.

Happy Anniversary, Keith!  Are you surprised?!   Or just crazy?!  I opened only one of the three bags of custom-printed M&M’s to take the picture, and nibbled only two of those I photographed.  So there will be plenty to sample when we get home tonight!

You know those number/word puzzles that are so much fun to do?  The ones that show the significance of a number?  Like:

88 = P.K.  (88 = Piano Keys)

200D = F. P. G. I. M. (200 Dollars for Passing Go in Monopoly)

3 = B.M. : S.H.T.R (3 = Blind Mice:  See How they Run)

Well, I have a new number/word puzzle in that genre.  And its number is very significant.

117 = S.B. – F. R. K. T. C.

Can you guess it?

Give up?  Okay.

117 = Shoe Boxes – For Real Kids This Christmas

Thanks to generous friends, 117 real kids will be getting shoe box gifts this Christmas.  Eight of the boxes feature tracking labels, so we’ll even know where those eight boxes are distributed.  Over all the years, we’ve known where only one box was gifted – in 1995 to the “Family Prosenc” in Trovlje, Slovenija.  Since then, we’ve been careful about not including a return address.  We want no resources expended on thank you notes.

The breakdown for this year:

Our box breakdown for 2009:

And how we got to 117:

Look at this mess!  The fabulous Women on Wednesday class to which I belong came over instead of conducting bible study to help organize and begin packing.  I love those women.  Truly. Sure, the girls and I buy stuff all year long – but we never bought all this.  Most gifts – crayons, boxes of unopened Happy Meal toys, T-shirts, etc. – arrived from friends at work, often anonymously.  I literally don’t know what we have until I open the storage cabinets, slice open the boxes and start pulling it all out.   Other gifts arrived from long-time friends like Shelley, who had boxes delivered straight to our house. The generous folks who sent toys, school supplies, clothing items, etc. – and/or money for shipping (GREATLY appreciated!) – they know who they are, and I won’t embarrass them here by calling them out. They know Who knows, and that’s all that matters.

Dana and Dorothy D, performing the un-glamorous job of opening packs of underwear and socks, rolling them tight and placing individual pairs in Ziploc bags with all the air squeezed out.  We treat any cloth “anything” like this, to keep the item clean, take up less space and provide a gift of the Ziploc bag.  Doing this is not quick.  This.  Takes.  For.  Ever.

My girls know:  All non-chocolate Halloween candies extorted – er – collected plus all gum goes into the boxes.  We also buy a load at Wal-mart the day after Halloween, which Hannah bagged the same day.  Generous friends gifted more later, so Brook and Dorothy N quarter-filled sandwich-sized Ziploc bags to go into the boxes.  Most boxes got two or three small candy bags.

Cutting strips of toothbrushes apart for individual packing…again, not glamorous,  but necessary.  Thanks, Lynne, for being so sharp!

The son of friend Renee – Arthur – has been coming over on Saturday for a few years to pack.  Actually – he was our inspiration before he was old enough to pack.  His sister Allison would walk around the boy gifts asking aloud, “Now, what would Arthur like?”  That’s a box of knitted stocking caps, each made  by Keith’s mom, and each Ziploc’ed with the air squeezed out.  We had enough for every child to get one.  I used to stress about those caps going somewhere really hot, like Africa, before I was told by a member of the delivery team, “Oh, no, the kids love there love them.  Keeps their heads from sunburning when they’re picking.”

This year, Arthur brought his friend Tim (left).   Arthur’s (wonderful) mother Renee is pictured on the right, Ziploc’ing T-shirts.  Does your church have leftover VBS shirts?   Does your employer have some shirts moldering on a dusty shelf?  Those are prime box prizes!  Renee and her kiddos also haunt the 75% off sales at the Target Dollar Spot.

117 boxes – Yes, a record number (previous high was 95 in 2007), but it’s never been about the number.  Never. It’s always been about doing as many as we were supposed to do.

What we learned this year:

-  The Container Store has the best boxes – period.  Sturdy, thick heavy clear plastic with close-fitting lids that snap tightly.    They’re also the most pricey – but we caught a sale with an extra 30% off and free delivery to the store (plus Upromise credit.)   Made them pennies more expensive that the cheapies.  I bought 35.  I wish I’d bought 100.

-  Before you buy a box – test it.  Does the lip snap tightly?  Is the plastic rigid enough to hold water, which is the most commonly-observed use for the boxes?  We had some donated this year that were really skuzzy.  The plastic was flimsy and the lids had virtually no tension.  Rachel wondered if they’d actually withstand the trip overseas.  So we decided to use them to sort/store gifts and quit using them to pack.

-  My WOW friend Linda figured out that pre-packing crayons, a bag of candy and a Christmas greeting (4″ x 6″ photo with message) in boxes was a good use of time as everyone else Ziploc’ed  cloth materials, pulled price stickers, etc.  Dang.  Why didn’t we ever think of that before?  So handy to grab an already-started box with those gender-neutral items you’re sure to need.

Samaritan’s Purse hopes/expects to distribute 8M shoe boxes this year.  Compared to 8M – 117 is nothing, like .000014625%.  But the thing is – those 117 boxes will go to real kids.  With real faces.  And real hearts, ready to hear the true Christmas story.  The boxes don’t materialize out of thin air.  If they’re not packed and shipped – then the kids don’t get them.

117 = S.B. – F. R. K. T. C.

It’s that simple.

And that significant.

The girls and I are fairly tired and definitely sweaty after a full day of filling, carting, stacking and banding Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child boxes.  We’re not sure how many boxes we have just yet.  I’m never even  sure what we have to pack until I start dragging it out and slicing open boxes.  “Oh!  Here are Shelley’s bags!  Omigosh, it’s Lisa’s crayons!  Look in these socks – they tucked a check inside!”

All I can say is – I have the world’s most generous friends, without a doubt.

So stay tuned for box count announcement.

In the meantime – we indulged in a “station break” at the Region 12 Choir Concert in which Hannah performed as 11th chair Alto.  She’s the (spunky) brunette in the very top row, 7th from the right.   She and her fellow Bush Middle School 8th grade girls’ choir members wore black formals, of which there were a disproportionate number peppered among the students representing 37 South Texas schools.

Listen to the sound of my voice

Can you hear the beat of my heart

Listen to the questions I have

Listen to me

It’s all very simple to see what we need

Give us hope

We’ll never hear the voices of the kids that receive shoe boxes.  We’ll never hug them and hear their hearts beat, or ponder their questions.

But maybe.

Just maybe.

We can give a little hope.

If you helped in any way with shoe boxes this year, know that you have that shared that hope.  You’ll never get a thank-you note, or something colorful to tack up on your fridge.  No swollen-bellied mother is going to stand behind her ragged child,  point directly at you and hiss, “Now you go say ‘thank you.’”   Nobody is going to pat you on the back at church.  There may be only One who knows what you’ve done – how you’ve practiced true religion.

We are the future

Help us believe

Give us hope

And we’ll show you the way.

The day after Thanksgiving means wrestling the Christmas tree from under the stairs.

The day after Christmas means hitting the outlet mall.

But before we get there…..the day after Halloween means snatching up a cart full of of half-price candy at Wal-Mart for Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.

Yes, it has begun.  Again.

We bought cheap Rubbermaid cabinetry at Home Depot last year before Hannah could move into what was the guest room, with its lovely empty closet holding all this stuff. Today I am just dragging stuff out. Lois, Hannah and Julia filled dozens of sandwich-sized Ziplog baggies with candy before their afternoon choir practices today.  Lots more to fill. We pack only plastic shoeboxes – none of that “gift wrap a paper box” nonsense.  For about $1@, the plastic box becomes part of the gift, and is far more likely to survive the journey overseas.  The most commonly-observed use for the boxes?  To haul water.

School supplies, anyone?  My friend Lisa reminded me years ago, “It does no good to send pencils without a sharpener.”  This year, she and Matt sent 101 boxes of crayons (among other things) – no sharpener needed. I am blessed with the world’s most generous friends – there is no doubt in my mind. Yes, you know who you are.

The very beginning of organization – girls’ pile, boys’ pile, either pile. It’s an unholy mess right now.
My “Women on Wednesday” class is coming over Wednesday night to help pull labels, ditch packaging, organize piles, etc.   We may even pack a few.  And long-time friend Renee is coming over Saturday with her daughter and friends to pack.  And, of course, we’ll be working on them at home through the week.

If you’ve ever wanted to pack a shoebox for a needy child – give it a whirl!  It’s so much fun.   It gives joy not only to the child, but also to the giver.  The day you pack.  The day the child receives it.

And every day thereafter.

Lois – clutching the white teddy bear – is costumed as “Canada.” No, I’m not entirely sure I understand that either.  But she and her goofy friends are taking Julia (the cutest little bat ever)  trick-or-treating, soon to return to the house to roast hotdogs and s’mores on Keith’s fire pit.  An assortment of “Halloween Rubber Ducks” are swimming with the koi in the pond in candle-lit splendor.

Hannah is at a friend’s house extorting candy.  Rachel – bemoaning her first Halloween as a college student is being spent grabbing Kleenex -  is sneezing and snorting and greeting the ghosts and goblins while helping Keith roast pumpkin seeds.

I’m very content to watch “Ghostbusters” and slowly savor nibbles  of my annual Milky Way.

And that, my friends, is what I call a happy evening – and most definitely a treat.

Happy Halloween!